The Worm Ouroboros by Eric Rücker Eddison (e book reader online .TXT) 📖
- Author: Eric Rücker Eddison
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strutting erect on its two legs that were the legs of a cock; and a
cock’s head it had, with rosy comb and wattles, but the face of it
like no fowl’s face of middle-earth but rather a gorgon’s out of Hell.
Black shining feathers grew on its neck, but the body of it was the
body of a dragon with scales that glittered in the rays of the
candles, and a scaly crest stood on its back; and its wings were like
bats’ wings, and its tail the tail of an aspick with a sting in the
end thereof, and from its beak its forked tongue flickered venomously.
And the stature of the thing was a little above a cubit. Now because
of the spells of King Gorice whereby he held it ensorcelled it might
not cast its baneful glance upon him, nor upon Gro, but it walked back
and forth in the candle light, averting its eyes from them. The
feathers on its neck were fluffed up with anger and wondrous swiftly
twirled its scaly tail, and it hissed ever more fiercely, irked by the
bonds of the King’s enchantment; and the breath of it was noisome, and
hung in sluggish wreaths about the chamber. So for a while it walked
before them, and as it looked sidelong past him Gro beheld the light
of its eyes that were as sick moons burning poisonously through a mist
of greenish yellow in the dusk of night. And strong loathing seized
him, so that his gorge rose to behold the thing, and his brow and the
palms of his hands became clammy, and he said, “My Lord the King, I
have looked steadfastly on this cockatrice and it affrighteth me no
whit, but it is loathly in my sight, so that my gorge riseth because
of it,” and with that he fell a-vomiting. And the King commanded that
serpent back into its hole, whither it returned, hissing wrathfully.
Now the King poured forth wine, speaking a charm over the cup, and when
the bright wine had revived Lord Gro, the King spake saying, “It is
well, O Gro, that thou hast shown thyself a philosopher indeed, and of
heart intrepid. Yet even as no blade is utterly tried until one try it
in very battle, where if it snap woe and doom wait on the hand that
wields it, so must thou in this midnight suffer a yet fiercer
furnace-heat of terror, wherein if thou be reduced we are both lost
eternally, and this Carcë and all Witchland blasted with us for ever in
ruin and oblivion. Durst abide this trial?”
Gro answered, “I am hot to obey your word, O King. For well know I
that it is idle to hope by phantoms and illusions to appal the Demons,
and that against the Demons the deadly eye of thy cockatrice were
turned in vain. Stout of heart are they, and instructed in all lore,
and Juss a sorcerer of ancient power, who hath charms to blunt the
glance of basilisk or cockatrice. He that would strike down the Demons
must conjure indeed.”
“Great,” said the King, “is the strength and cunning of the seed of
Demonland. By main strength have they now shown mastery over us, as
sadly witnesseth the overthrow of Gorice XI., ‘gainst whom no mortal
could stand up and wrastle and not die, till cursed Goldry, drunk with
spleen and envy, slew him in the Foliot Isles. Nor was there any
aforetime to outdo us in feats of arms, and Gorice X., victorious in
single combats without number, made our name glorious over all the
world. Yet at the last he gat his death, out of all expectation and by
what treacherous sleight I know not, standing in single combat against
the curled step-dancer from Krothering. But I, that am skilled in
grammarie, do bear a mightier engine against the Demons than brawny
sinews or the sword that smiteth asunder. Yet is mine engine perilous
to him that useth it.”
Therewith the King unlocked the greatest of those books that lay by on
the massive table, saying in Gro’s ear, as one who would not be
overheard, “This is that awful book of grammarie wherewith in this
same chamber, on such a night, Gorice VII. stirred the vasty deep. And
know that from this circumstance alone ensued the ruin of King Gorice
VII., in that, having by his hellish science conjured up somewhat from
the primaeval dark, and being utterly fordone with the sweat and
stress of his conjuring, his mind was clouded for a moment, in such
sort that either he forgot the words writ in this grammarie, or the
page whereon they were writ, or speech failed him to speak those words
that must be spoken, or might to do those things which must be done to
complete the charm. Wherefore he kept not his power over that which he
had called out of the deep, but it turned upon him and tare him limb
from limb. Such like doom will I avoid, renewing in these latter days
those self-same spells, if thou durst stand by me undismayed the while
I utter my incantations. And shouldst thou mark me fail or waver ere
all be accomplished, then shalt thyself lay hand on book and crucible
and fulfil whatsoever is needful, as I shall first show thee. Or
quailest thou at this?”
Gro said, “Lord, show me my task. And I will carry it, though all the
Furies of the pit flock to this chamber to say me nay.”
So the King instructed Gro, rehearsing to him those acts that were
needful, and making known unto him the divers pages of the grammarie
whereon were writ those words which must be spoken each in its due time
and sequence. But the King pronounced not yet those words, pointing only
to them in the book, for whoso speaketh those words in vain and out of
season is lost. And now when the retorts and beakers with their several
necks and tubes and the appurtenances thereof were set in order, and the
unhallowed processes of fixation, conjunction, deflagration,
putrefaction, and rubefication were nearing maturity, and the baleful
star Antares standing by the astrolabe within a little of the meridian
signified the instant approach of midnight, the King described on the
floor with his conjuring rod three pentacles inclosed within a
seven-pointed star, with the signs of Cancer and of Scorpio joined by
certain runes. And in the midst of the star he limned the image of a
green crab eating of the sun. And turning to the seventy-third page of
his great black grammarie the King recited in a mighty voice words of
hidden meaning, calling on the name that it is a sin to utter.
Now when he had spoken the first spell and was silent, there was a
deadly quiet in that chamber, and a chill in the air as of winter. And
in the quiet Gro heard the King’s breath coming and going, as of one
who bath rowed a course. Now the blood rushed back to Gro’s heart and
his hands and feet became cold and a cold sweat brake forth on his
brow. But for all that, he held yet his courage firm and his brain
ready. The King motioned to Gro to break off the tail of a certain
drop of black glass that lay on the table; and with the snapping of
its tail the whole drop fell in pieces in a coarse black powder. Gro
by the King’s direction gathered that powder and dropped it in the
great alembic wherein a green fluid seethed and bubbled above the
flame of a lamp; and the fluid became red as blood, and the body of
the alembic filled with a tawny smoke, and sparks of sun-like
brilliance flashed and crackled through the smoke. Thereupon distilled
from the neck of the alembic a white oil incombustible, and the King
dipped his rod in that oil and described round the seven-pointed star
on the floor the figure of the worm Ouroboros, that eateth his own
tail. And he wrote the formula of the crab below the circle, and spake
his second spell.
When that was done, yet more biting seemed the night air and yet more
like the grave the stillness of the chamber. The King’s hand shook as
with an ague as he turned the pages of the mighty book. Gro’s teeth
chattered in his head. He gritted them together and waited. And now
through every window came a light into the chamber as of skies paling
to the dawn. Yet not wholly so; for never yet came dawn at midnight,
nor from all four quarters of the sky at once, nor with such swift
strides of increasing light, nor with a light so ghastly. The candle
flames burned filmy as the glare waxed strong from without: an evil
pallid light of bale and corruption, wherein the hands and faces of
the King Gorice and his disciple showed death-pale, and their lips
black as the dark skin of a grape where the bloom has been rubbed off
from it. The King cried terribly, “The hour approacheth!” And he took
a phial of crystal containing a decoction of wolf’s jelly and
salamander’s blood, and dropped seven drops from the alembic into the
phial and poured forth that liquor on the figure of the crab drawn on
the floor. Gro leaned against the wall, weak in body but with will
unbowed. So bitter was the cold that his hands and feet were benumbed,
and the liquor from the phial congealed where it fell. Yet the sweat
stood in beads on the forehead of the King by reason of the mighty
striving that was his, and in the overpowering glare of that light
from the underskies he stood stiff and erect, hands clenched and arms
outstretched, and spake the words LURO VOPO VIR VOARCHADUMIA.
Now with those words spoken the vivid light departed as a blown-out
lamp, and the midnight closed down again without. Nor was any sound
heard save the thick panting of the King; but it was as if the night
held its breath in expectation of that which was to come. And the
candles sputtered and burned blue. The King swayed and clutched the
table with his left hand; and again the King pronounced terribly the
word VOARCHADUMIA.
Thereafter for the space of ten heart-beats silence hung like a
kestrel poised in the listening night. Then went a crash through earth
and heaven, and a blinding wildfire through the chamber as it had been
a thunderbolt. All Carcë quaked, and the chamber was filled with a
beating of wings, like the wings of some monstrous bird. The air that
was wintry cold waxed on a sudden hot as the breath of a burning
mountain, and Gro was near choking with the smell of soot and the
smell of brimstone. And the chamber rocked as a ship riding in a swell
with the wind against the tide. But the King, steadying himself
against the table and clutching the edge of it till the veins on his
lean hand seemed nigh to bursting, cried in short breaths and with an
altered voice, “By these figures drawn and by these spells enchanted,
by the unction of wolf and salamander, by the unblest sign of Cancer
now leaning to the sun, and by the fiery heart of Scorpio that flameth
in this hour on night’s meridian, thou art my thrall and instrument.
Abase thee and serve me, worm of the pit. Else will I by and by summon
out of ancient night intelligences and dominations mightier far than
thou, and they shall serve mine ends, and thee shall they chain with
chains of quenchless fire and drag thee from torment to torment
through
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